Cynopsis: DIGITAL

06/16/10

Good morning, it’s Wednesday, June 16, 2010, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.  If you would like to read this or any other Cynopsis edition online, click here.

Nintendo showed off its new 3DS handheld gaming device at E3 on Tuesday, which is not due out until March 2011 and has yet to be priced. The cool thing about it is that it displays games, movie trailers and other 3D content without the need to wear dorky glasses. The 3DS will feature two screens – a 3.5 inch 3D viewing screen on top and a 3-inch 2D touchscreen on the bottom, complete with a motion sensor, gyrometer, a slide pad and 3 separate cameras. Sony also announced that 20 3D games will be released for the PS3 by next March and that another 40 games utilizing the new PlayStation Move motion-control system are due out in time for the holiday season. The Move controller is due out Sept. 19 in the U.S. for $50. Upcoming 3D titles (these ones will require glasses) include “Gran Tursimo 5,” “Tron Evolution,” “Mortal Kombat” and “NBA 2K11.” 

 
From Sir Richard Branson comes another online competitive gaming portal Virgin Gaming, encouraging players to challenge each other from multiple nations for bragging rights, cash, points and prizes. Available titles at launch include Halo 3, Madden NFL 10, MLB 10: The Show and NCAA Football 10, each of which can be played through users’ Xbox 360 or PS3 consoles. The cash carrot is the clearly the company’s big pitch, with Virgin promising to hand out a total of $1 million in tournament prizes in the next year. Virgin Gaming is the result of a partnership with WorldGaming.com, co-founded by William Levy and Zack Zeldin.
 
TheWB.com premiered a slate of 4 new web series to help stave off summer rerun boredom, including new offerings from producer/director McG (“Terminator Salvation,” “Supernatural”) and Jace Hall (“V”). Each show premiered its first batch of episodes on Monday with the remaining episodes scheduled to stream next Tuesday June 22:

• “High Drama 2: Against All Oz” is a behind the scenes docudrama following a group of students preparing for the opening night musical production of The Wizard of Oz
• Action/horror series “Chadam” utilizes the Unreal Engine 3 gaming platform behind “Gears of War” and “BioShock”
• The thriller “Exposed” is about a college student who searches for the source of a wave of menacing text messages
• “Downers Grove” is a situation comedy set in suburban Chicago

 
Gannett’s USA Today has struck a new travel-themed partnership with location-based social network Gowalla to allow users to check in from major U.S. airports to receive airport and airline news as well as other content from USA Today‘s travel section.
 

 
Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf channeled BTO and summed it up the state of technology perfectly on Monday night when he received the 14th Annual Webby for Lifetime Achievement (remember speeches are limited to 5 words or less): “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.”
 
Twitter unveiled its geolocation-powered Twitter Places feature on twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com allowing users to share their location with members by geo-tagging their tweets. Twitter Places will also integrate with Foursquare and Gowalla and will reveal lists of recent tweets from multiple locations. The company is also releasing API functionality to enable developers to integrate Twitter Places into their applications.

Warner’s straight-to-DVD and short form digital production arm Warner Premiere is developing a live-action digital series based on the Alloy Entertainment book series The Clique written by Lisi Harrison.  The Clique will feature all-new characters and adventures written by Justine Bateman (Easy to Assemble) and her FM 78.tv partner Jill Kushner (Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show). 
 

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM TV GUIDE NETWORK

 
Internet ad revenue will overtake newspaper advertising to become the second largest medium in the U.S., swelling from $24.2 billion in 2009 to $34.4 billion in 2014, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers‘ Global Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2010 to 2014.
 
Sites with relevant content correlate strongly with audiences being loyal to the sites with a correlation score of .445 between the two, according to the new “Sense of Place” survey conducted by Harris Interactive, on behalf of the Online Publishers Association. Media properties, portals and social networks with trusted content also correlated strongly with the sites’ advertisers being perceived as reputable, with a correlation score of .388. Brands perceived as relevant were also more likely to have a response to their online ads, with a correlation score of .353. Comcast Digital Entertainment and MTV Networks Digital are sponsoring a muti-city roadshow to evangelize the findings to advertisers, beginning with a stop in Detroit today at the Townsend Hotel.
 
Search re-targeting start-up Magnetic is announcing a new solution today to enable advertisers to buy display media and search data together through Magnetic’s re-targeting platform. The company also closed on a series A $4 million round of financing led by Charles River Ventures, Ron Conway and NYC Investment Fund.
 

 
The FCC released a detailed Spectrum Analysis white paper outlining how the agency plans to divert spectrum from broadcasters to build out a new wireless broadband service in the U.S. The FCC, which still promises that auctioning off spectrum will be voluntary, hopes it will be able to free up spectrum using techniques such as repacking channel assignments more efficiently with existing 6 Mhz licenses. Such a move might enable two stations to share one HD video stream each. 
 

 
Facebook, which has become the fastest growing site for video viewing online, can offer advertisers the most bang for their buck in terms of price and reach, according to new research conducted by TubeMogul utilizing its PlayTime ad platform. Taking a sample of 34.5 million streams from top media companies’ video clips embedded within Facebook, the tracking firm found that:

• Facebook led all other discovery sources in terms of minutes-watched per view at 1:45, followed by Twitter (1:44), Google (1:32), Yahoo (1:28) and Bing (1:16)
• Facebook ad units have 5.40% to 9.43% higher completion rates than identical videos run in display units on publisher sites with Facebook’s Virtual Currency and In-Banner video ads completed over 40% of the time
• 3/4 of Facebook ad units sampled have a lower average cost per view than comparable offsite displays

 
Content delivery network Ooyala announced enhancements to its analytics software to give publishers up to 500 new analytics reports, including city and DMA drill-downs, social media tracking, and deeper analysis of webpage performance. For instance, publishers can see how their videos perform in Chicago or London, or track what happens when a video is shared on Facebook, YouTube, Digg or Twitter.
 

 
Apple unveiled a souped up version of the Mac Mini shipping with faster processors, an HDMI port and an SD card reader. The HDMI port makes the Mini a perfect device to connect to your HDTV, allowing you to access any website on your television supporting resolutions up to 1080p (1920 x 1200 pixels) – such as Hulu, which diligently blocks access to over-the-top media center solutions. It also ships with built in Wi-Fi and Apple’s FrontRow media center software, which allows you to view DVDs, music, photos, etc. using an Apple Remote (not bundled with the Mini). I know this sounds complicated, but you’ll also have to download the free Understudy plug-in in order to view both Hulu and Netflix content through the FrontRow interface. The new Mac Mini priced at $699, including a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive.
 
Users trying to log on the Apple‘s website to reserve their iPhone 4 yesterday were frustrated by long wait times and system failures, as Apple says servers were overwhelmed by demand. (For those planning to pick one up in person on June 24, RadioShack will join Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Apple and AT&T stores in offering the handset, it was just announced.) Apple wasn’t the only giant experiencing outages yesterday; Twitter went down again, for the first time in a while.
 
Discovery Education has launched its first mobile app, U.S. Geography by Discovery Education, available globally on the App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch and coming to iPad later this summer. The $4.99 app features geography-themed videos, interactive gameplay and leaderboard-driven competition.
 
Univision Interactive Media has extended its popular Univision Futbol iPhone App to the BlackBerry, Android and Nokia Ovi platforms. The video streaming app has been downloaded over 290,000 times to date.
 

 
Chris Mansolillo has been upped from GM to President of ExerciseTV, the multiplatform fitness-themed network owned by Comcast. He will continue to oversee day-to-day operations, programming, production and marketing for the company.
 
AccuWeather tapped Marie Svet as VP/Yield Management and Advertising Operations, a newly created position. She will be charged with developing new integrations, sponsorships and placements for clients.
 

 
Streaming video game service OnLive, slated to go live tomorrow, announced its initial lineup of 23 games at E3 yesterday. New games are on the way from EA, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Sega and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, including popular titles such as “Assassin’s Creed,” “NBA 2K10,” “Mass Effect 2” and “Borderlands.” Tested by companies like EA, which released a browser-based version of its Tiger Woods golf game this spring, broadband video games seem finally ready to take on the console market as the footprint of users enjoying 1.5 Mbps download speeds grows. (HD games require speeds of at least 5 Mbps.) The appeal of this model is that communities of players will no longer be defined by what console they use; players will be able to invite others or record and share clips of their gameplay with everyone on the network. Everyone will be playing the same version of the game all the time, and no hardware is required – although the company will release a wireless console-style controller that allows gamers to lean back and get comfortable when playing. The company also announced a new promotion with AT&T to waive its monthly membership fee for the first year, or extend it through a second year for $5/month.
 
Later – Wayne
Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
[email protected]
06.16.10

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  JOB OPENING: PROD COORD/Sesame Workshop/NYC: Int’l exp. speaks Urdu & knows Pakistani culture; provide prod oversight on local adaptation of U.S. brand.Orgnzd/strong script skills/team player. [email protected] (6/23)

JOB OPENING: DIR, DIST FLD SALES/LA:  Mng MSO accts/mkting initves/bdgt/strgy pln/team mgmt/5+yrs cble sles exp/  apply at www.aetn.com    https://www.abso.com/jobboard/Default.aspx?JOBBOARDID=618&JobDetail=73953 (6/23)

JOB OPENING: SR MGR DIGITAL SALES PROGRAMS/ABC/NY:  Work w/digital team, create pkgs/sponsorship opps, shepherd the implementation, ensure seamless execution throughout the life of the campaign www.disneyabcjobs.com # 250802 (6/23)

JOB OPENING: MGR, DIG AD PROD DEV/NY: AD PROD DEV MGR: Execute goals of Dig Ad Ops focus prod dev, mgmt & optim. aetn.com/careers/html  (6/22)

JOB OPENING: ACCOUNT SERVICES EXEC/NY: Assist AD w/all aspects of sales process, passion for selling, develop selling/deal strategies BA/BS preferably in mktg/comm, 5+ yrs wkg within sales/mktg Apply: www.nationalcinemedia.com (6/22)

JOB OPENING: JUNIOR CASTING DIRECTOR/NYC: For reality/non-fict TV. Extnsve rsrch for characters, subcultures, formats for next big hit. Basic shoot/edit/pitching & treatment writing. Res/Cov Ltr: [email protected]. 2+ yrs exp req’d (6/22)

JOB OPENING: RESEARCH MGR/CAFEMOM/NY: Res. studies for ad prgrms, update synd. res. reports, ad hoc reports for mgmt insight. 5 yrs exp; exp w/comScore or Nielsen NetRating data; Excel, PPoint. More at www.cafemom.com/about/jobs.php (6/22)

JOB OPENING: DIGITAL MEDIA BUYER/PLANNER/NYC: with excellent neg. & critical thinking skills is needed to handle dev. & execution of online media campaigns. Cover, resume, & salary req. [email protected] Job# Digital MPB (6/22)

JOB OPENING: AD SALES MKTG MGR/DISH Network/NY: Dev/create ad sales mktg materials across entire portfolio incl Advanced TV. Resp for ad sales brand messaging. 7+ yrs ad sales mktg or related exp. Res: [email protected] (6/19)

JOB OPENING: SALES COORD/DISH Network/NY: Great opp for highly motivated indiv. Manage tasks/srvc agencies & clients daily. Det. oriented/good comm. 1+ yrs media exp. Span/Eng language pref. Res to: [email protected] (6/19)

JOB OPENING: JR MEDIA BUYER/LA: Need motivated self-starter to work w/media unit for Fox O&Os. Media buy & plan for all mediums. Strata exp prfrd. Detailed, strng comm & comp skills a Must. EOE/M/F/D/V. Resume: [email protected] (6/19)

JOB OPENING: SR MANAGER, HUMAN RESOURCES/Hallmark Channels/LA: Manages day to day HR Ops for Hallmark Channel office locations and supervises one direct report. View full posting & apply: www.hallmarkchannel.com “Jobs” (6/19)

JOB OPENING: PUBLICITY MGR/Discovery Communications/SS: dvlp & implement prg publicity campaigns for Discovery Channel, mng & implement ntl and local market branding/communications initiatives www.discovery.com Req#9764 (6/19)

JOB OPENING: CABLE TV TRAFFIC ADMINS (2)/LA:  Seeking two Traffic professionals who have Gabriel software experience for two month contract in LA. Details will be provided to qualified candidates. Send resume to [email protected]  (6/19)

JOB OPENING: DIRECTOR, MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT/NY: Work w Sales, P & P Comm Ops, Billing to protect continuity/integrity of all data in sales/traffic system/all NBCU properties/Min 5 yrs exp & BA.  Apply: at www.gecareers.com # 1198119 (6/18)

JOB OPENING: ANALYST/SR ANALYST, RSRCH/BET NY Sales: 2-3yrs exp TV or media rsrch. Prof in StarTrak, Nielsen Npower/MarketBreaks/AdViews, MRI. Strong PPT & Excel; PPT creativity a must. Res: [email protected] (6/18)

JOB OPENING: DIGITAL AD SALES/MTV Networks/NYC: Mgr Consu Insights. BA, 4-6 yrs exp. Exp mng quan/qual primary resch. ComScore, MediaMetrix, Omniture; knwl brand sol. Str ldrship/proj mgmt. EOE/M/F/D/AAP www.mtvncareers.com (6/17)

JOB OPENING: SR. BUYER-LOCAL TV/Active Int’l in Pearl River, NY: (15 miles from NYC): Min 3 – 5 yrs exp. in negotiating and buying local TV req’d. Resumes to: [email protected] or call 845-732-8943  (6/17)

JOB OPENING: DATA STEWARD/Univision/NY: Ongoing mgmt of adv/agcy data in sls systems. Biz POC for CRM sys support. Detail oriented/ work ind/ comm. skills. 2+ yrs exp in adv sls pref. EOP  email to:  [email protected] (6/17)

INTERNSHIPS – These positions are for credit only – nobody gets paid here. These ads are always posted for free , and students work for school credit only. For more information on the specs for posting an Internship ad, email Trish at [email protected] .

SUMMER INTERNSHIP CREDITS ONLY:TV DISTRIBUTION INTERN/NYC: Learn how to market and sell factual series and specials to cool broadcasters in the US & Canada.Must be interested in the business of TV. Cover/resume to: [email protected] (6/17)

SITUATION WANTED ADS, POSTED BY THOSE LOOKING TO BE HIRED …  There is no charge for placing your Situation Wanted ad … for more information contact Trish Pihonak at [email protected]

SITUATION WANTED: DIRECTOR/CREATIVE DEVELOPER: Animation. Dynamic, award-winning, fun-filled…Past clients include Warner Brothers, ABC Family, Comedy Central, Nick JR, HBO Family, MTV2, The Tornante Company. [email protected] (6/22)

SITUATION WANTED: SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST (NY) seeking FT work. Balances research & analytics with a creative, strategic, & tactical vision of the social media landscape. Tweets, blogs, obtains mayorships. Contact: [email protected] (6/22)

SITUATION WANTED: TRAFFIC MANAGER: Over 10 years experience in TV Traffic.  3 years in management.  Full working knowledge of copy continuity, log building and tape process. Email [email protected]   (6/19)

SITUATION WANTED:  MEDIA SALES/MARKETING STRATEGIST: Extensive experience in all forms of media..print/OOH/digital. Can profitably re-purpose content. Seeking FT/PT or Temp-to-Perm position. [email protected] (6/19)

SITUATION WANTED: DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT PUBLICIST (LA & NYC): Expert publicist specializing in mobilizing online audiences towards series and ent brands. Top media contacts, pro unit PR, project, will travel [email protected] (6/19)

SITUATION WANTED: Dedicated & Experienced ADV. SALES PLANNER (NY) Sales proposals, resolving client discrepancies, quarterly post analysis, special sales service projects, expert computer skills. Contact- [email protected] (6/17)

SITUATION WANTED:  DOCUMENTARY. PRODUCER, DIRECTOR, WRITER in L.A. Five prime time Emmys. Credits: National Geo, PBS, Discovery, History CH, TLC and MSNBC. Contact email: [email protected] (6/17)

E-mail [email protected] or call Trish Pihonak at 203.926.9878 for rates and specs for Job Openings.

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